The invention relates to a method for the reversible, manipulation-proof encoding of an engine controller for a motor vehicle and an engine controller for use with such a method.
Engine controllers for motor vehicles are now widely known and are designed for the control, regulation and monitoring of engine functions. With variable characteristics of a motor vehicle, the provision for engine controllers of software and/or electronics for such different operating characteristics is also known. The setting of the engine controller to such operating characteristics of a motor vehicle is otherwise also referred to as encoding. In relation to such operating characteristics, which can change during the lifetime of a motor vehicle, recoding is consequently possible.
However, there are operating characteristics of a motor vehicle, which may be inaccessible to such recoding for various reasons, so that controllers are specially designed and developed for the operating characteristics, referred to below as first operating characteristics. For example, the exhaust gas treatment of the motor vehicle may not be recoded, as recoding would activate other error logs or displays, which e.g. would enable manipulation during an inspection. Consequently, there are some legal regulations that do not allow recoding of an engine controller in relation to the first operating characteristics. Thus e.g. in Germany there are regulations for the performance, the exhaust gas treatment or the activation/deactivation of start-stop functionality.
As engine controllers are thus designed specifically for these first operating characteristics, not only does the number of software and hardware variants increase in order to be able to meet diverse requirements, but a plurality of engine controller variants is also produced, which brings with it a logistical cost and adversely influences the operability and the discrimination in relation to the various engine controller variants. The significant factors for the large number of engine controller variants are e.g. different performance variants, different transmission variants, different exhaust gas treatment variants, start-stop functionality or no start-stop-functionality as well as different maximum speeds. There are thus high costs as a result of the production and maintenance of the respective engine controller variants in development, high logistical costs in production and high logistical costs in customer service. The different variants have to be picked even during the final installation and configuration of the engine controller on a motor vehicle.